


Safety

by bearonthecouch



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Pre-Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:21:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24099511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearonthecouch/pseuds/bearonthecouch
Summary: Prauf was well used to the boy's evasiveness. That didn't mean he was happy about it.
Relationships: Cal Kestis & Prauf
Comments: 1
Kudos: 83





	Safety

“Hey. Kid.”

Prauf's voice cut through the quiet of the scrappers' dormitory, but the young boy Cal didn't even seem to hear it. He whimpered and rolled over onto his side, his legs kicking under the blankets as he tried to run from whatever nightmare assaulted his sleep.

Prauf sat down on the edge of Cal's bunk, and gently patted the human boy's shoulder. Cal let out a little cry, but he still didn't open his eyes. Prauf shook him a little bit harder. This time the boy did awaken, and his hand reached out for a weapon he no longer carried. His eyes were wide with panic, and his breathing came in heavy gasps.

“Hell, kid,” Prauf rumbled. “Must be some kind of dream you were having.”

Cal shook his head as he calmed. “Prauf,” he said, matter-of-factly. He looked over the Abednedo's shoulder as if expecting to see someone else.

“The one and only,” Prauf agreed.

“I'm okay. Really I am.”

Prauf snorted. “Right, and I'm the Emperor.”

Cal bit his lip and glared. The boy had a stubborn streak a mile wide, but that likely contributed to keeping him alive out in the yards. Shipbreaking work wasn't easy, and it wasn't meant for kids. But Cal could slip through crevices no one else could reach, and he had an uncanny talent for finding valuable bits of metal or treasure others had overlooked. Their Imperial overseers tolerated his presence because it was profitable, and Cal refused to leave despite the dangers. Prauf still pleaded with him, but after a year, he had given up on believing that the boy would ever actually listen to him. Cal had never even told him how he'd ended up on Bracca in the first place. And it wasn't because Prauf hadn't asked. The planet didn't used to be a dead end, but it was now, with the Scrappers' Guild crumbling under the Empire's iron fist and its workers treated little better than slaves. All of them, even Cal, worked shifts of twelve hours or more, eating and drinking only what little they could carry on the collapsing wrecks. Career-ending injuries, even deaths, were so common they barely drew comment. Bracca was full of desperate, homeless men and women who begged on the streets, left to fend for themselves when they could no longer work. Prauf had rescued the pre-adolescent Cal Kestis from those same streets, after the boy had made an amateur attempt to relieve him of what little food and coin he possessed. They'd rarely been apart in the months since then.

But Cal had secrets, heavy ones for a child so young. They bled out in his sleepless nights, and the way he jumped at shadows and fought like he'd been trained to do it. Sometimes he winced as if in pain as his hand brushed over a bit of scrap metal or some discarded trinket left behind on the ghost ships of the Clone Wars. He bit his tongue and shook his head when Prauf shot him questioning glances.

By now, Prauf was well used to the boy's evasiveness. That didn't mean he was happy about it. Still, he let his meaty hand slide off the boy's shoulder as he stood up, stretching aching muscles that protested the thought of another shift out 'breaking, a night shift this time, under floodlights that shone like a sun.

Cal ran a hand through messy hair and frowned up at Prauf. He wasn't the only one who tried and failed to hide pain and exhaustion in an effort to shield the other from worry.

“I'm okay,” Prauf growled, and Cal just snorted.

“Right. And I'm the Emperor.”

Prauf shoved the human boy good-naturedly, then caught his hand with his own larger one. Cal looked down at their skin to skin contact with wide eyes, as though something as simple as a friendly touch was foreign to him. Prauf let go, and nodded toward the dormitory door. “We'd better go, if we want any chance of scarfing down a meal before the work siren sounds.”

Cal nodded, and raced ahead of Prauf. The Abednedo chuckled. The human boy ate like – well, like a teenage boy – and Prauf knew he needed the strength that the food would provide.

They ate hurriedly, as they did everything else, under the Empire's ruthless timetables and working under the watchful “eyes” of droids who had little patience for the needs of organics. But Cal moved a little too slowly, his eyes clouded with sleep and his mind still obviously elsewhere.

“I don't suppose you want to talk about it?” Prauf prompted. “Whatever you were dreaming?”

He knew what the boy's response would be, but still, he felt the need to try.

“It's nothing,” Cal replied, predictably. “Just a bad dream.”

Prauf nodded slowly. Vivid dreaming like Cal's seemed to be a human thing, and least Prauf couldn't remember ever fighting against his own blankets and crying out in his sleep. He swallowed a mouthful of barely palatable nutrient paste and idly longed for the layered depth of the flavors of his homeworld. His eyes caught Cal's, and held them.

“You gonna be okay out there?” he asked, his voice graver than usual. Any one of them going into the scrapyards distracted was risking their life, and Cal ran headlong into danger more frequently than most of them, climbing treacherous pathways without a safety harness and flashing Prauf a cocky grin whenever he tried to say something about it.

“I'm _fine_ ,” Cal demanded, sounding more irritated than he usually did. Prauf's eyes widened, and he held up his hand in a gesture of surrender.

“Whatever you say, boss.”

Cal finished his ration bar and crumpled up the wrapper, tossing it into the waste receptacle as they headed out to face the day-that-was-actually-night. When they got on the yards, Cal actually clipped a safety line to his belt and waited as Prauf began crawling over the wrecked ship just behind him. The human boy loosened a bolt with a wrench and looked over at the Abednedo. “Hey Prauf,” he finally said. “Thanks.”

Prauf's eyes narrowed and he worked his jaw without any words coming out, as if Cal's statement itself was some kind of trap. “For what, kid?” he finally managed to spit out.

The boy shrugged. “Everything.”


End file.
